One time I was laying back on the couch eating a twinkie, and just totally being lazy. I mean ultra-lazy. I hadn’t moved from the spot from hours. Even my cat got bored of lying there and moved.
So when someone knocked on the door, I yelled out loud angrily and got up like a drunk sloth. When I stumbled over to the door and opened it, with my twinkie still in hand, I was surprised to see a small package lying at my feet. I picked it up and took a good look at who it was from. It was addressed from my friend Bobby, who had died in a tragic chalk-eating accident last year.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said, running to the street.
I saw the post man getting back in his mini car.
“Hey, I don’t want this junk!!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, waving my twinkie at him in defiance.
He drove off without looking once at me. What an idiot.
I took the box to my porch and looked at it. Since it was suspicious, I didn’t bring it inside. I decided to carefully open it up, and was surprised to find a letter, along with an ancient cartridge-style game.
The letter was in very shaky handwriting, which read:
Dear John,
I don’t want this game anymore. I just want this all to end. I may be gone from here soon, but please keep this game hidden away. Never play it. EVER!!
Lots of love,
Bobby
I grimaced, and looked at the game. It was a N64 game, and one I had seen at his house. It was called, “The Legend of Zelda: Pokémon’s Mask” and was written in black ink over its plain cartridge. I decided to do what he wanted.
I went to sleep later that night and had a dream of Bobby with black, bleeding eyes holding the game and repeatedly telling me, “Don’t play this game!” I mostly replied with, “Shut up, I’ve heard you like a thousand times already! I’m not going to!” What an idiot.
The next morning I looked for the game, which I left on a table by my door. But, it wasn’t there. I looked in the living room, bedroom, and even the bathroom in case I left it there on accident. Nope, no game. I was going to give up when I looked at my old Nintendo 64 console sitting on a shelf in my living room. It was already in the system!
“Oh, no you don’t.” I said sternly.
I tried to take it out, but it was stuck.
“Well, I could play it…” I began to think.
Then I realized how stupid that was and went to get some pliers. I got it out, finally. I put it in a bag and decided to take it on a road trip.
“Hidden so no one will find it, huh?” I thought as I stood on a local mountain. I took a trowel and began digging a small hole, and then I set the game in.
“Stop right there!” Someone yelled in the distance.
I turned around to see a park ranger running up the hill in a hurry, all the while huffing from exertion.
“Shoot,” I thought.
“You’re… not supposed to litter!” They said, coming to a stop in front of me and barely looking at me.
I didn’t want to give up without a fight, so I said, “But, my friend really wanted me to get rid of this. He’s dead, by the way. I just nee-“
They ignored me and said, “Get that out of here, NOW!”
She was so scary that I ran back to my car. So much for that. I had gotten my parents to drive me out here saying it I was collecting bugs. Dang it.
I arrived to find my parents hanging out near the portable bathrooms, which smelled awful.
“Did you find bugs, hunny?” My mom asked sweetly.
“No,” I said flatly. “I’ll have to try later.”
Later back at our house, I brought the dumb game in my room.
I figured I could bury it in my back yard. Or throw it away. I figured I’d try burying it first.
The next day, I tried digging a hole with the game still in the bag. That’s when my Dad came out.
“Oh, doing some gardening?” He said with a big grin.
“Yeah…”
I spent the rest of the afternoon gardening. Shoot.
After having worked for hours, dirty and sweaty, I gave a long, mean glare to the game in the bag.
“Time for you to go,” I told it. I walked outside directly to the garbage bin. The trash truck would pick it up tomorrow. I was done.
That evening at dinner, my mom suddenly got a big smile on her face before taking a bite of mashed potato on her fork.
“Oh, hunny, you’re not going to believe this!”
She ran out of the room for a few seconds and CAME BACK WITH THE CARTRIDGE! Dang it!
“You had almost thrown your game away! You’re so lucky I saw it.”
I sighed and decided to explain to her my attempt to get rid of it.
“I don’t want it anymore, so I was trying to get rid of it.”
“What?” She asked, suddenly having a frown. “Does it not work anymore?”
“Yes, it doesn’t,” I lied.
“Well, how about you put it on later and find out?” She asked. “Don’t be wasteful.”
Later on, I took it back to my room. My parents wanted to see it turn on, so I figured I’d leave it on for only a short time. I plugged the old Nintendo 64 into the wall and connected it to our TV in the living room. I grabbed my parents and turned the game on. A howling noise came from the game and a Nintendo logo came in and out in a staticy way. Then, the start screen appeared with a eyeless Link staring right at us.
“Oh, a horror game!” My dad said cheerfuly.
I groaned, and watched the evil Link glitch out repeatedly with the happy mask salesman's laughter occasionally joining in.
“Well, looks like it plays,” I said grudgingly.
“Well, I wanna see more,” my mom said cheerfully.
The last thing I wanted to do was play a game from a supposedly dead friend begging me not to play it.
“I’m tired tonight. I think I want to go to bed now.”
I did my best to feign sleepiness, and they both left. I went to turn the game off, but it stayed on. I unplugged the system, but it was still on. The happy mask salesman in a Keaton mask flashed on screen for a second.
So, I unplugged the game from the TV and stuck it in a closet.
I sighed angrily, wondering if I had to get rid of my Nintendo 64 now. Why would Bobby do this?
The next morning, I saw the console was plugged back into my TV. I ran over and pulled the game out of the console, shaking the cartridge in anger.
I figured that I could wait for the house to be empty, and could destroy the cartridge with a hammer. Leaving it in a school bathroom wasn’t a way to hide it.
An idea came to mind. I could try flushing it!
An hour later, I had a soaking wet cartridge and felt ashamed. What could I do? I looked at the cartridge. Was the title written in black ink, or dark blood?!
“This is some horror movie trash!” I yelled at the cartridge.
Later in the day, my parents did their regular shopping run.
“Okay, don’t make a mess of the house!” My dad yelled as they both left.
I smiled and twisted my hands together in an evil villain sort of way.
“Mwahahaha!”
I took the cartridge into the garage and grabbed a hammer. It was time to get rid of it once and for all.
I smashed it into a bunch of big chunks, which flew off wildly in every direction. I took the chunks and put them in a trash bag.
“Goodbye, evil video game,” I told it, bringing it to our kitchen trash can and lightly dropping it within.
No, I didn’t hide the video game. I was smarter than Bobby and just got rid of it. I spent the rest of the day lying on the couch.
About a week later, I got another package in the mail. This time it was from my friend Jessica who had recently gone insane and was sent to a mental hospital for no explicable reason. I opened it to find a cartridge and a letter. I threw both into the trash late at night.